Women’s commission gets the budget ax

Of the dozens of state agencies that Gov. Jerry Brown is proposing to eliminate or consolidate, to further the cause of “making government more efficient” (in the words of his 2012-13 budget), the Commission on the Status of Women is far from the most prominent. Others facing the ax include the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, a noted haven for former legislators; the Fair Employment and Housing Commission, the San Francisco-based civil rights agency that has struggled for survival under two governors; and the Departments of Mental Health and Alcohol and Drug Programs, whose considerable duties would be shifted to other health agencies.

Lopping off the women’s commission’s current $265,000 budget, which is due to run out in mid-April, won’t have nearly the impact of Brown’s proposed cuts of $1.4 billion in welfare and child care, reductions that are already stirring protest among advocates for the poor. And, of course, there’s much more to come if voters turn down the governor’s five-year, $35 billion package of sales and income taxes in November.

Still, a commission that’s been around since 1965, and is the only official body designated to advise California’s government about the impact of its actions on more than half the population, seems entitled to at least some words of farewell.

“The need for women’s voices to be heard has never been greater in the state of California, and the Commission on the Status of Women gives women that voice,” said state Sen. Noreen Evans, the Santa Rosa Democrat who is one of six legislative members of the commission and also chairs the Legislature’s 34-member Women’s Caucus. She said the caucus is sending Brown a letter urging him to change his mind — and pointing out, Evans said, that the overall budget cuts “are falling most heavily on the women and children of this state.”

Beth McGovern, the commission’s executive director and one of its two paid staffers (the other is a policy analyst who also answers the office phone), ticked off the hardest-hit state programs: welfare, Medi-Cal, in-home care, child care, aid to the elderly and disabled.

“When you look at the faces of the people who are affected, it turns out to be mostly poor women,” she said. And most of the workers providing state-subsidized child care and in-home care are female, so “women will get hit from both sides.”

Without the commission, McGovern said, there will be no one in state government to speak up for women and girls. The other boards, commissions and departments that Brown is proposing to eliminate would have their duties reassigned, she said, but “there’s no plan for the work of the commission to continue.”

Brown sees it differently.

“While the statutory goals of the commission are worthy, I continue to believe there are other formal and informal venues for policy development and advocacy that do not require general fund expenditures,” he said in July, when he cut the Legislature’s appropriation for the commission from $465,000 to $265,000, less than it needed to keep its doors open for a full year. In light of the state’s budget crunch, he said, the government must “focus on its core functions.”

Brown’s new budget plan, which would abolish the commission, stated tersely that “numerous alternative and effective forums address these important issues.”

One way to translate that exemplar of government-speak is, I’ve got enough critics on the streets and in the boardrooms, so why should I spend the state’s money on in-house fault-finders?

“The governor has tried to make budget reductions, and the commission has been a thorn in his side,” said Jean Ross, executive director of the nonprofit California Budget Project. “The policy question here is, is that role something that the state should fund, or should it come from outside of the government?”

The commission currently has a dozen members — actress and feminist Geena Davis is the biggest name — who are appointed by the governor, legislative leaders and other state officials. They’ve held public hearings around the state every couple of years, on issues like the problems of women veterans and sexual assaults in immigration lockups, but with the travel budget gone, they mostly meet by phone these days, analyzing legislation and program cuts and sharing their views with lawmakers. This year’s commission-backed bills included requiring maternity coverage in insurance policies, which Brown signed, and prohibiting the shackling of pregnant inmates in most circumstances, which he vetoed.

The skeleton staff, meanwhile, is looking for private funds to last out the fiscal year, which runs through June. McGovern said the commission would have had to shut down in February, but the retirement of longtime Executive Director Mary Wiberg last month freed up enough money to stay open until mid-April.

Long-term survival seems doubtful, with Brown having the last word. But the commission has been raised as an issue by at least one candidate in this year’s legislative elections.

“Women still make less money than men for the same work and are drastically underrepresented in the Legislature,” Kathy Neal, an Oakland Democrat running to replace termed-out Assemblyman Sandre Swanson, said in a press release. “We cannot afford to shut down an important organization that gives a voice to women across the state.”